EARL OF STRAFFORD

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 242, 9 July 1938, Page 6 (Supplement)

EARL OF STRAFFORD

Brilliant Biography By Lord Birkenhead

“Strafford " by .the Earl of Birkenhead (London : Hutchinson). The terms' “brilliant" and “fascinating" have been used to describe this study of one of the great men of English history. The terms are just. The Earl of Birkenhead has succeeded in throwing new light on the life, character an'd actions of Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, who paid with bis life for putting his trust in princes. Strafford was a strange character. He was a mixture of greatness and meanness, of liberty-loving and iron despotism, of toleration and intolerance. An opponent of Charles I and a great supporter, with Eliot and Pym and Cromwell, of the Parliamentary cause, he was to become the bitter opponent of his former friends and the greatest strength of a king in whom there was no gratitude. His former frien'ds, regarding him as a renegade, a deserter from the cause of liberty, and the instrument of the King’s oppression, stretched the laws of the land to bring him within their clutches and to the scaffold. While he lived. ■Strafford, in their view, was a menace to English liberties. Lord Birkenhead has traced the career of this extraordinary man with a fullness that leaves nothing to the imagination. He has done it with the skill of the true dramatist. The book is not a dry-as-dnst collection of incidents and conversations. The narrative marches slowly to the end. The style compares favourably with the best prose styles in the English language. Nor is Lord Birkenhead behind-hand delivering an opposite opinion if he considers that past writers have been wrong in their judgments. But where he disagrees lie also presents the evidence. Nothing is glossed over merely because its mention might damage the case that the author is desirous of presenting. But this volume, is not only a brilliant and fascinating study of a great man. It is equally a brilliant and fascinating study of a period: one of the most momentous periods in the long history of England. We are led into the .halls of the great, and we listen to the debates on questions that are even now agitating mankind. The author has soaked himself in seventeenthcentury life and thought. One of the outstanding chapters is the fourth, in which he tells of London and the men in power. He places bis finger unerringly on the strength and the weakness of Strafford. “The Court was the only channel to promotion, and it was there he went. Ho was ambitious, .he.wv wealthy, and he wanted power.” Even as a Parliamentarian he refused to go . the whole way with Eliot, Pym and Coke, and was “strongly opposed to any drastic paring down of the Royal prerogative, or any mad exaltation of the sovereignty of Parliament. His moderateness during the Petition of Right debates earned him the dislike of Sir John Eliot, and the admiration of King Charles.. Suddenly . came a staggering piece of news [July, 1628] . . . Wentworth was created a baron. The Parliament men could hardly contain their fury. Their champion, the most deadly gladiator in those memorable, debates .on the liberty of the subject, had slunk renegade from the fold, seduced by .the glitter.of.. promotion.” Henceforth they were not’to cehse their hostility until Wentworth’s head had been severed from the shoulders,on the. block some years later. The trial of Strafford is among the most memorable In’ English history. During it Strafford rose ■to - groat heights of dignity. He met .his accusers without .flinching, and. was more than a match for them In intellect. - But it was of no avail. The dice was loaded against him. He heard the sentence unmoved, and conducted himself with calmness and fortitude. The King whom he served so faithfully, if nnwisely trustfully, was eight years later to follow Strafford to eternity by the same route —the .executioner and the block. . • '.7 Lord Birkenhead has related it all with that brilliant eloquence and masterly control of words that prove him a worthy successor to his father’s great reputation.